Greg Myre

Greg Myre is a national security correspondent with a focus on counter-terrorism, a topic he has covered in the U.S., the Middle East and in many other countries around the world for more than two decades.

He was previously the international editor for NPR.org, working closely with NPR correspondents around the world and national security reporters in Washington. He heads the Parallels blog and is a frequent contributor to the website on global affairs. Prior to his current position, he was a senior editor at Morning Edition from 2008-2011.

Before joining NPR, Myre was a foreign correspondent for 20 years with The New York Times and The Associated Press.

He was first posted to South Africa in 1987, where he witnessed Nelson Mandela's release from prison and reported on the final years of apartheid. He was assigned to Pakistan in 1993 and often traveled to war-torn Afghanistan. He was one of the first reporters to interview members of an obscure new group calling itself the Taliban.

Myre was also posted to Cyprus and worked throughout the Middle East, including extended trips to Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia. He went to Moscow from 1996 to 1999, covering the early days of Vladimir Putin.

He was based in Jerusalem from 2000-2007, reporting on the heaviest fighting ever between Israelis and the Palestinians.

Myre is a scholar at the Middle East Institute in Washington and has appeared as an analyst on CNN, PBS, BBC, C-SPAN, Fox, Al Jazeera and other networks. He's a graduate of Yale University, where he played football and basketball.

Jacob Zuma became South Africa's president in 2009 amid suspicions of corruption. After nine years in office, and many more allegations, he resigned Wednesday after his own African National Congress party told him it was time to go.

Zuma, 75, was a political survivor. But he never escaped the taint of corruption, and his tenure marked the rockiest period in South Africa's post-apartheid era.

An estimated 300 Americans attempted to join the Islamic State and other radical Islamist groups in Iraq and Syria, including a small number who rose to senior positions, according to the most detailed report to date on this issue.

The Islamic State no longer controls cities. Its previously large ranks are decimated. Survivors have scattered into the desert. Yet ISIS still has militants with weapons and plans for renewed mayhem.

"We have repeatedly said in this room, the war is not over," Defense Secretary James Mattis noted last week at the Pentagon.

He said U.S. forces are still tracking down small pockets of ISIS fighters. In Iraq, the U.S. is still working closely with the Iraqi security forces, in hopes they can take full control of the country's territory.

Jerusalem has been contested for millennia and its status remains unresolved to this day. The Israelis claim the entire city as their capital, while the Palestinians are seeking a capital in the eastern part of the city for a future state.

The U.S. position has long been that the city's status should be settled in negotiations between the two sides.

President Trump broke from that policy by announcing Wednesday that the U.S. recognizes Jerusalem as Israel's capital and by planning to move the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Editor's Note: This is an updated version of a story that was originally published on July 28, 2013.

When South Africa's Nelson Mandela died in 2013 at age 95, the international community celebrated him as an iconic figure, a symbol of hope and statesmanship, the man who guided a troubled country from apartheid to democracy.

Traditional. Predictable. Risk-averse. These words defined Saudi Arabia and its elderly monarchs for decades. But the kingdom's brash crown prince, 32-year-old Mohammad bin Salman, is swiftly scrapping the old ways of doing business at home and abroad.

According to President Trump, some Republicans in Congress and conservative media outlets, the Russia scandal is heating up.

No, not that one.

It's an alternative Russia scandal. And the claims go like this:

As secretary of state, Hillary Clinton approved the 2010 sale of a mining company to Russia. This gave the Russians control of 20 percent of U.S. uranium and placed U.S. national security at risk. In return, the Clinton Foundation received $145 million in pledges and donations.

As the Islamic State has crumbled in its core territory in the Middle East, the extremist group has pressed individual supporters to carry out vehicle attacks in the West.

The lethal assaults have traumatized European cities for more than a year, and authorities are pointing to a similar motivation in the New York City attack that killed eight people on Tuesday.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said the attack was a "classic case of a radicalization of a domestic jihadist who associated with ISIS and this is their new playbook. Very simple. Use a vehicle to cause harm."

Former Army Specialist Jonathan Morita testified Thursday that his rifle was shot out of his grip, and his right hand was seriously injured, when a search for missing soldier Bowe Bergdahl turned into a firefight with the Taliban in July 2009.

Morita, dressed head-to-toe in black civilian clothes, also said he's been short-tempered since his injury, which still limits the use of his hand despite surgeries and years of rehabilitation.

A Navy SEAL testified Wednesday in Fort Bragg, N.C., that he was shot and badly injured during a heavy firefight while searching for Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl after Bergdahl walked off his combat outpost in Afghanistan.

The military judge, Army Col. Jeffery Nance, is allowing the testimony of three service members whose injuries are considered a direct result of the searches for Bergdahl, who was captured by the Taliban and held for five years. He has pleaded guilty to desertion and misbehavior before the enemy.

When U.S. troops were ambushed in Niger on Oct. 4, the widespread reaction was surprise. The U.S. has military forces in Niger? What are they doing there?

Yet in many ways, the Niger operation typifies U.S. military missions underway in roughly 20 African countries, mostly in the northern third of the continent. They tend to be small, they are carried out largely below the radar, and most are focused on a specific aim: rolling back Islamist extremism.

At 1:30 a.m. on June 17, sailors on the USS Fitzgerald were jolted awake in their bunks. Some were thrown to the floor. Their guided missile destroyer had just collided with a cargo ship off the coast of Japan.

A gaping hole was gashed into their living quarters, two levels below deck, and they were engulfed in a rush of cold seawater.

When Attorney General Jeff Sessions was asked how he viewed the car attack in Charlottesville, Va., here's how he responded:

"It does meet the definition of domestic terrorism in our statute," he told ABC's Good Morning America.

That certainly seems to suggest the government is looking into a possible terrorism charge against the suspect, 20-year-old James Alex Fields Jr. At Saturday's rally organized by white supremacists, a car slammed into counterprotesters, killing one and injuring 19.

When it comes to U.S. sanctions against Moscow, the Cold War has never really ended.

President Gerald Ford signed off on trade restrictions against the Soviet Union and other communist countries in a 1974 measure known as the Jackson-Vanik amendment, for its congressional sponsors.

The message to Moscow: If you deny basic human rights — in this case, the right of certain people, especially Jews, to emigrate from the Soviet Union — you can't conduct normal business with the United States.